


a good song never dies

by Lila17



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apocalypse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23625679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lila17/pseuds/Lila17
Summary: Five thought he was the only person alive after the apocalypse. He was wrong.(Or: they never found each other, but Vanya survived the apocalypse.)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	a good song never dies

It’s silent.

That’s what really gets her, the first time she’s coherent enough to notice. How  _ silent  _ it is.

—————-

It all exploded outward.

The cruelty of it. Of ruining her life- all those years, all that trouble, all that pain for- for  _ what_? And she was supposed to know that there were good people worth saving in the world, but suddenly it felt like she’d never met one.

Has she, even?

The anger and sound crashed through her like a tidal wave, making her tiny in comparison, a reflection chamber to coil inside and bounce bounce bounce and  _ grow_. So much larger than little Vanya Hargreeves had ever been.

She went to the concert anyway. They came for her there too.

And the anger came, the force of an entire ocean pressed inside of her. And the thing that she’d thought earlier while breaking out of the vault,  _ this house deserves to burn_, had flicked one level up.

_ The world deserves to burn. _

——————————————

There’s no sound anymore. She crawled out onto the street once the quietness of it, the unbearable  _ silence_, her breath rasping in her ears but nothing else just like the vault, once that silence, once it.

Anyway.

Doesn’t matter, because there’s nothing outside. 

Nothing. 

She collapses and doesn’t move for hours.

————————————

She can’t even understand the lengths people have gone for her sometimes. The sheer  _ effort _ required to fuck her over like this.

To hide her powers. To isolate her from the family. To trick her into using medication that crushed her every emotion in a vise. To make her believe that she was ordinary (unspecial, powerless, weak, worthless, nothing).

(Nothing).

To lie to her. To manipulate her. To bring her powers back to life. To pretend to care about her. To hide an assault inside a hug. To lock her underground in the place of her worst memories, and  _ leave  _ her there.

To cause the apocalypse, leaving Vanya Hargreeves permanently alone once and for all.

(She did that last one.)

(All she can say, knowing that even she hurt herself- is that it’s not unexpected.)

——————————-

It’s all destroyed. Everything. She did that. She barely remembers what she did, but somehow she knows that there are no survivors.

(She made sure of it.)

She hasn’t felt much of anything since it happened. She was an ocean, the  _ aliveness  _ and the  _ sound _ and the  _ crashing_, the explosion of force. Her powers haven’t activated since. There’s nothing anymore. 

She did this.

At first, she thought she could just curl up outside the remains of the theater and die. Lie there until her body stopped working; it wouldn’t be hard, after all. No one would miss her. She’s the only person capable of  _ missing _ left. 

(And tragedy isn’t hard. All you have to do is fall.)

Except that dying of thirst hurts like a bitch and at some point her body drives her up out of sheer desperation before she ever gives it permission to do that, seeking out anything to make the dying  _ stop _ and the survival  _ start_. Instincts don’t turn off in the apocalypse, of course.

She stumbles upon a stash of water in someone’s broken home. It’s maybe even still safe to drink, but it’s not like she cares about that.

There’s nothing to live for.

——————————

_ Why is everyone dead? _

Logically, it doesn’t make sense. All she did was destroy the world- she destroyed the face of it, the buildings. Shouldn’t there be someone out there still, far enough away from her or simply astronomically lucky?

_ But everyone’s dead.  _ She knows that. Why does she know that?

She remembers an explosion. From her. The ocean bursting loose in all directions, not concentrated, a wave of power. And- and something- else-

The world was full of noise. She had a world full of desperation. She wanted them to  _ hear  _ her, wanted them to  _ know_. And then she heard all of them, all at once.

She did something at that intersection. 

Like she wasn’t just using her own emotions, she was using theirs too. Is that- possible? Does that even make sense?

Doesn’t matter.

They’re all dead now. That’s the important thing.

—————————————

Vanya starts screaming one day. And she doesn’t stop.

The sound is louder than anything she’s heard in a while, sitting and picking through random stores of food and water when she has to. She feels sick constantly, but that could be from anything.

From genuine sickness. From hunger. From emotion. From, somehow, her powers.

Where was she? Right, she starts screaming.

The entire block shakes because it’s still sound and it’s  _ loud_, and she curls up and screams without breaking for breath. She screams and screams and screams and screams and can’t stop and the building collapses on top of her but she doesn’t stop until she emerges an hour later. She’s fine; a little bubble of force protected her, just like it did when She Did This and her own destruction came to call. Just like when she survived to wake up in the apocalypse in the first place, when no one else did.

She’s alive. She’s alone.

Like always.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have an exact answer for it, but I was figuring that Vanya dies at some point after this. Not even necessarily by killing herself, but just that...well, it's going to take everything you have, firing on all cylinders, to survive in a place like that. And Vanya just doesn't have it.
> 
> this fic belongs to the "politely ignoring all the ways the original timeline might have been different" gang. Title is from "A Good Song Never Dies" by Saint Motel, though I made it mean something way darker. still a bop


End file.
